Article:2.3.3

"Religion, Rabbinate, Hasidism" is not in the list (Communal and Social Life, Communal and Social Life - Urban Life, Communal and Social Life - Rural Life, Communal and Social Life - Social Margins, Communal and Social Life - Philanthropy, Culture, Culture - Art, Culture - Enlightenment, Culture - Literature, Culture - Music, ...) of allowed values for the "BelongsToTopic" property.

Karaites of Galicia

     Karaites of Galicia

Golda Akhiezer

       Topics
       KaraiteCommunal and Social LifeReligion, Rabbinate, Hasidism"Religion, Rabbinate, Hasidism" is not in the list (Communal and Social Life, Communal and Social Life - Urban Life, Communal and Social Life - Rural Life, Communal and Social Life - Social Margins, Communal and Social Life - Philanthropy, Culture, Culture - Art, Culture - Enlightenment, Culture - Literature, Culture - Music, ...) of allowed values for the "BelongsToTopic" property.

       Period
       Before 17721772-19141914-19181918-19391939-19451945- Post War

       Region
       Eastern Galicia

       NLI Code
       997013604471805171

Related Personalities

• Person:Leonowicz
• Person:KukizowD

Related Entries

• Article:2.2.1
• Article:2.7.2
• Article:1.1.1

Map

• Distribution of Karaite Communities in Galicia

The Karaite movement developed as an independent denomination within Judaism in Babylonia in the 9^th–10^th centuries and is characterized by its rejection of the authority of the Talmud and of Rabbinic exegesis and rulings. Karaite communities spread in Persia, Egypt, Byzantium, Crimea and Poland. They differed from the mainstream Rabbanite Jews by various religious practices such as calendrical accounting, dietary rules, and burial laws and customs. The beginning of the Karaite settlements in future Galician territories is an issue of debate due to the lack of sources. Supposedly, the Karaite settlers arrived in Poland-Lithuania from the Crimean Golden Horde (especially from its capital Solkhat, and later from Genoese Kaffa), during the late 14^th–15^th centuries, through the trade routes leading from Crimea to Eastern Europe – via Tatarica and via Valachica. They established communities in Lithuania (Trakai), Volhynia (Lutsk), and in Lviv. There are still indications of the Karaite presence in Lviv in the 16^th century; but most of the Karaite population apparently relocated from the late 15^th century to Halych, and to such towns as Zolochiv, Zhydachiv, Busk. In 1578 the Halych Karaite community was granted a charter by the Polish King Stefan Batory. According to the data from the 1627 Polish census, 24 of the 130 lots occupied in Halych in that year contained Karaite homes. In 1765, the city was home to 99 Karaites and 258 Rabbanite Jews. In the mid-17^th century there were approximately 2,000 Karaites in Poland-Lithuania. The relations with local Rabbanites, which excluded mixed marriages, ranged from mutual support in various spheres of life to strong economic competition and religious polemics.

One of the specific features of the Galician Karaites was that in spite of their principal rejection of the Rabbanite tradition, they were impacted by Rabbanite customs more than was the case with other Karaite communities. For instance, local Karaites encircled the territory of a cemetery with ropes that were later turned into candlewicks and used for making memorial candles; they fixed mezuzot to their doorposts and wore the ṭalit ḳaṭan; in the 19^th century married Karaite women shaved their hair and wore wigs.

As in the case of other Jewish communities, the Khmelnytskyi massacres (1648/1649) led to both demographic and cultural decline among the Galician Karaites.

One of the most prominent Galician Karaite scholars was the head of the Halych community, Yosef ben Shemuel ha-Mashbir (d. 1700), a native of Derazhnya, Volhynia. He was involved in the revival of Karaite education, issued a series of halakhic injunctions, and strengthened ties between the Karaites of Halych and their coreligionists in Crimea. He penned a number of works (none was published and several were not preserved), among them Ner Ḥokhmah [Candle of Wisdom], dealing with liturgical issues; Peerat Yosef [The Glory of Yosef], a Hebrew grammar whose first section contains ethical and philosophical content; Shever Yosef [The Provision of Yosef], a collection of responsa about the secrets of the Torah; Perush ʿal ʿAsarah ʿIḳarim [Commentary on the Ten Principles], a philosophical commentary on the Ten Principles of Faith suggested by Istanbuli Karaite scholar Eliyah Bashyatchi in his works. According to Yosef ha-Mashbir’s opinion concerning the study of the extraneous wisdom [ḥokhmot ḥitsoniyot], Jews would ideally have no need for the wisdom of the nations, although in the present the Jews are compelled to avail themselves of it.

Another important Karaite intellectual figure was Mordekhai ben Nisan (who was murdered in 1709 with his son Nisan on his way to Crimea). As a native of Trakai, he was compelled by order of King Jan III Sobieski’s son Constantine to lead a group of the Trakai Karaites who resettled in 1688 in the Eastern Galician town of Kukeziv, where he was further appointed to the ḥazan (primarily administrative head of a Karaite community, who could be also a religious authority).

He lived in a period in which Protestant theologians and intellectuals in Europe expressed a great interest in Karaism, which they regarded as a Jewish phenomenon that resembled the Protestant movement. His most renowned book Dod Mordekhai [Mordekhai’s Beloved], was written as a reply to the questions of Calvinist professor Jacobus Trigland of Leiden University in the Netherlands. It deals with the schism between Karaite and Rabbanite Jews, and Karaism’s advantage over “Talmudic Judaism”. This book, as well as his other treatise, Levush Malkhut [Robes of Royalty], on the same topic, which was written as a reply to Swedish king Charles XII, marks a turning point in the anti-Rabbanite polemics. Until the appearance of these books, Eastern European Karaite authors had exhibited no particular interest in such a polemic, revealing a tendency of rapprochement with Rabbanites. Among his other works are also Maamar Mordekhai [The Essay of Mordecai], an elucidation of Sefer ha-Mivḥar by the 13^th century Byzantine Karaite author Aharon ben Yoseph; and Kelalim Yafīm [Beautiful Rules] – a Hebrew grammar for beginners. His work Imrei Binah [Wisdom Sayings] offers mathematical explanations of several kabbalistic concepts.

Eastern European Karaites studied various genres of Rabbanite literature extensively, including the Talmud and Mishnah (although they did not accept the latter as authoritative sources). We also find dozens of kabbalistic manuscripts among the Eastern European Karaites, although it was not a prevalent field of study among them.

The Austrian Period: Acculturation and Haskalah

The Austrian period (1772–1918) brought about numerous changes in all spheres of life in the Galician Karaite communities. One of these was a demographic decline, when the small community of Kukeziv ceased to exist ca. 1831. The reasons for this downturn were the deterioration of living conditions in this town under Austrian rule, caused mainly by the imposition of high taxes and the appropriation of part of the Karaites’ lands, as well as the large fire that broke out in that year. The major Galician Karaite population from this time until the end of the 20^th century remained concentrated in Halych. [[IMG:2.3.3-Karaites-1|]

The Galician Karaites’ relations with the new authorities developed in a different and more successful fashion than that of the Rabbanite Jews. Compared to the large Rabbanite Jewish population, which the Austrian emperor Joseph II viewed as unproductive and in need of fundamental reform, the existence of the Karaite minority was to him, and to the Empress Maria-Theresa, a complete surprise. According to the report from statesmen and minister Anton von Pergen in 1774, the Karaites, who were subject to the same laws and paid the same taxes as all the Jews, differed in several characteristics: they dressed like Poles and were engaged in agriculture and other forms of physical work. This phenomenon aroused the interest of the emperors. As a matter of fact, the Karaite population was engaged in the very same occupations as the Rabbanites, including lease-holding. However, the Karaites’ different clothing, and the fact that they did not spend as much time in Torah study in yeshivot, dedicating more time to work instead, favorably distinguished them from the local Rabbanite Jews.

Karaite leaders, and even individuals, applied to the Austrian authorities to obtain various rights. For instance, in 1773, a Karaite from Halych, Itzko Salmanowicz, requested an exemption from 50% of the wedding tax imposed on the Jews. His argument was “I am not a Jew, but a farmer.” Maria Theresa approved his request, also granting him a discount on the poll tax. This happened in spite of the documented fact (apparently unknown to the authorities) that Salmanowicz was actually a merchant who traded with Istanbul. This was a first attempt by the Karaites to demonstrate that they complied with the official agenda of Austrian policy regarding the productivity of local populations, especially in respect to involvement in agriculture. Based on this precedent, Maria Theresa granted the Galician Karaites a discount on the poll tax for their “commendable behaviour” (referring to their agricultural activity). As a result, in 1782 and 1785 numerous taxes and restrictions to which the Jews were subjected – such as the candle tax and the tax on kosher meat – were abolished for the Karaites, and in 1790 they were exempted from military service. This policy was to a large extent a result of the positive image of Karaism, a creation of Protestants in Europe, who regarded the Karaites as practicing an exemplary form of Judaism, without the Talmud and its “superstitions” and devoid of anti-Christian blasphemy, and hence possessing positive moral traits, such as honesty in business and utility for the state. The Karaite leaders tried to promote this positive image in Christian society, emphasizing that they were an indigenous population, loyal and useful citizens with a history, beliefs, and practices different from those of the Rabbanites.

This discourse was promoted and cultivated by Karaite leaders in the Austrian Empire (as well as in the Russian Empire) with the advent of the Jewish Enlightenment - Haskalah. This movement, which emerged from within Rabbanite Judaism, influenced Karaite communities as well, contributing to the formation of Eastern European Karaite elites of a unique type, who differed from their Rabbanite counterparts in several respects. These Karaite leaders tended to develop a dual attitude, presenting their community to the authorities as a distinct, not truly Jewish group, while identifying themselves vis-à-vis Rabbanite Jews as part of the nation of Israel. In addition, unlike the Rabbanite communities, the Karaite communities did not develop an Orthodoxy that could struggle to preserve Karaite Judaism from reforms or significant changes. The kind of polarization that existed in Rabbanite society was unknown in their small communities; Karaite communities could not therefore produce multiple competing and powerful elites. During this period, a leader of a Karaite community usually combined a religious and executive authority in one person, who had power to enact both halakhic and administrative regulations. The few Karaite leaders in Eastern Europe used their authority to realize their aims – acculturation and some religious reforms in order to be granted emancipation.

One such leader was Avraham ben Levi Leonowicz (1780–1851) the ḥazan of the Halych community from 1810, a key Karaite figure under Austrian rule. Leonowicz represented the interests of the Galician Karaites to the government and succeeded in obtaining a special legal status for them. He instituted Karaite maskilic education and introduced some reforms to Karaite law. For instance, he relaxed the stringent approach of the Karaite halakhah to impurity, in the case of contact with a human corpse, an approach that had prevented Karaites from burying their own dead (instead using the services of Rabbanites or of non-Jews). Leonowicz, who was interested in local Karaite history, produced by himself a “medieval,” and in fact an a-historical, chronicle. This forged text aimed to proof that local Karaites were an indigenous population, who were brought from Crimea and given as a ransom by Batu Khan to Prince Daniel of Galicia in 1243. Daniel, according to this chronicle, provided them writs of privilege granting the right to settle and to conduct commerce, as well as other rights not enjoyed by the Rabbanite Jews. This forged chronicle was an attempt to integrate the Karaites into the local history.2.3.3-Karaites-3

Leonowicz and other Karaite intellectuals, who were attracted to Haskalah, collaborated with Rabbanite maskilim in exchanging and selling Karaite and Rabbanite books and periodicals. The former maintained friendships, met personally, or corresponded with Daniel Hartenstein, the maskil of Brody, and the famous scholars from abroad, Shemu’el David Luzzatto, Yitsḥaḳ Reggio, and Avraham Geiger. Leonowicz’s son, Yosef, a Karaite maskil, who became a ḥazan after his father’s death, conducted a long correspondence from the 1860s through the 1890s with his friend, Hungarian maskil Yosef Levy, that was later published in the periodical Kokhvei Yitsḥaḳ. Among other things, they discussed a possible unification between Karaites and Rabbanites. Another Galician Karaite maskil, David ben Mordekhai Kukizów, (1777–1855, called also Mordkowicz), ḥazan of Kukeziv, together with Leonowicz, maintained close ties with the leading Galician maskil Naḥman Krochmal. The latter considered the question of what ought to be done if the Karaites asked to unite with the Rabbanites.

Leonowicz and David Kukizów were involved in the search for a Rabbanite publishing house that would be willing to print books for the Halych community, and also sought donations for this purpose from the Crimean Karaite communities. As a result, in 1830, three classic Karaite works on the Karaite-Rabbanite schism, exegesis, and halakhah – Dod Mordekhai, Oraḥ Tsadiḳim by Simha Yitsḥaḳ Lutski, and Ḳitsur ʿinyan ha-Sheḥiṭa by Yosef Malinowsky – were printed in Vienna in a single volume by the Christian Hebraic printer and publisher Anton Elder von Schmidt (edited by Shelomo Zalman Shtern of Rechnitz, Hungary). Leonowicz agreed with maskilic editor Shemu’el Leib Goldenberg of Tarnopol about the further publication of Karaite books, and leading Galician maskil Shelomoh Yehudah Rapoport expressed his support for this project. Leonowicz provided six Karaite manuscripts to Goldenberg, who transmitted them for review by the censor in Vienna; however, they remained unprinted. The Karaites accused Goldenberg of selling the manuscripts to the printer Anton Schmidt, who later donated them to the Imperial Library of Vienna. Goldenberg continued to correspond with Karaites; but this project was never realized, as the Evpatorian Karaites re-opened their own printing house in 1834 – a project that was initiated by Karaite intellectuals of Volhynian and Galician origin who had relocated to the Crimea. Among them were Yosef Shelomo Lutski and David Kukizów – both natives of Kukeziv. In addition to establishing the largest ever Karaite printing house, they aligned Karaite education with maskilic standards, providing their own commentaries to classical Karaite texts in order to make medieval texts accessible to the next generation. 2.3.3-Karaites-4

World War I and its Aftermath

During World War I numerous houses of the Karaite community of Halych as well as the local synagogue (kenasa) were damaged, tombstones from its cemetery were partly destroyed, and its members significantly diminished in number. In the mid-1930s, the community numbered no more than 150 Karaites, and this number possibly included the small Karaite population of Lviv. World War I divided the East European Karaite communities between several states. In the USSR, including Crimea, small Karaite groups were dispersed among different cities, whereas the Austrian Halych Karaites (as well as of Lutsk and Trakai) became Polish citizens. Most of the Lithuanian cities with Karaite communities (Panevėžys, Pasvalys, Biržai and Kaunas) were included in independent Lithuania.

Following this war, the Galician (as well as Volhynian and Trakai) Karaites exhibited a pro-Polish patriotic tendency and were perceived by the authorities as a loyal minority, and were therefore not subject to discrimination (as were the Rabbanites who were accused of harboring pro-Bolshevik sentiments). Moreover, the Karaite community received support from Polish authorities, for example for the repair of their synagogues and by the payment of salaries to its ḥazanim. In the interwar period Galician Karaites no longer operated their own schools as the Karaite population has decreased, and in addition, some Karaites preferred to send their children to Polish schools. This period witnessed the acceleration of mixed marriages with Christians among the members of the small Karaite community.

The interwar period was also marked by publishing activity among the Eastern European Karaites which involved the appearance of numerous poetry collections, novels, and periodicals in Polish and Karaite languages. A popular Karaite newspaper in this period was the Polish language Myśl Karaimska [Karaite Thought], published in Vilna from 1924 to 1939 (12 issues). It was edited by two Galician intellectuals, Zachariasz Nowahowicz (1883–1960) and Zarach Zarachowicz (1890–1952), ḥazan of the Halych community from 1934 to 1939, who also penned articles in Polish, Russian, and Karaite languages, and copied numerous Karaite classical works in Hebrew. Karaj Awazy [Karaite Voice], was published in Łuck from 1931 to 1938 under the editorship of Alexander Mardkowicz (1875–1944), in the Galician-Volhynian dialect of the Karaite language. Mardkowicz, a native of Łuck, was a poet, publicist, novelist, and community activist. He visited Halych and maintained ties with its Karaite intellectuals. 2.3.3-Karaites-5 In 1928 he proposed a radical reform of Karaism that would introduce a liturgy in the Karaite language, replace Saturday as a holy day with Sunday, and include the use of censers, the organ or piano, and a choir with church music in the prayer ceremonies. None of these elements had never existed in the Karaite tradition. These proposals were not implemented at the time, except for the gradual incorporation of the Karaite language in prayer. This process began in the early 1930s, through the encouragement of the Trakai ḥazan, Shemayah Firkovich, who visited Halych in 1933.

During this period the Galician Karaites founded the Union of Karaite Women, as well as the Association of Young Karaites headed by Zarachowicz. This association advanced Karaite cultural life, organizing performances, lectures, and presentations.

All of the Eastern European and Crimean Karaite communities in this period came under the strong influence of the theory that claimed Turkic-Khazar origins for the Crimean (and Eastern European) Karaites. This theory was developed and propagated by the leader of the Eastern European Karaites, Seraya ben Mordekhai Szapszał (1873–1961), a native of Crimea and an Orientalist who had graduated from Saint Petersburg University. He also served as a Russian agent in Persia, and as the last Karaite ḥakham, the religious authority, and to some extent also as the administrative head of the Karaite community (the functions of ḥazan and ḥakham, especially in the small communities were frequently interchangeable). He worked to disseminate his theories intensively among his co-religionists through the educational system, newspapers (some of which he censored by himself, in order to maintain the dominance of his own ideological line within Karaite discourse), and by means of his own pseudo-scientific writings. Nonetheless, in retrospect, these theories played a crucial role in the de-Judaization of the Eastern European Karaites. According to Szapszał, the Karaites were not Jews, as Karaism was an independent religion, close to early Christianity, which had accepted Jesus and Muḥammad as prophets. Szapszał advanced his own ideas about the survival of remnants of pagan beliefs among the Karaites, which ostensibly proved their affinity with the Khazars and other Turkic peoples and the lack of connection to Rabbanite Jewry. Among these survivals was the Karaite belief in two gods: the good god and the evil god. Szapszał invented “Turkic-Karaite” customs and folklore, presenting “authentic” texts which he penned by himself, and substituted numerous Hebrew words with Turkic ones, such as the names of Jewish holidays and the months of the Hebrew calendar. As a result of his ideology, which gained the support of major Karaite intellectuals, the use of Hebrew as a literary language was gradually abandoned, and was replaced by Russian, Polish, and Karaite languages. Importantly, only a small group of Galician Karaites, headed by Zarachowicz, continued to preserve their Jewish outlook and authentic Karaite tradition even during the Soviet period (until Zarachowicz’s suicide in 1952 due to the persecutions of Stalin’s regime), teaching children the authentic Karaite tradition and faith. 2.3.3-Karaites-6

Szapszał’s theories were apparently inspired by the Pan-Turkism of Kemal Atatürk in the newly established Turkish Republic, where Szapszał had stayed in the 1920s. His theories were part of his endeavors to protect his community from anti-Semitism in Poland, and from the consequences of Hitler’s rise to power. The alleged Turkic origins of the Karaites effectively saved them from extermination by the Nazis in areas of their occupation in the Soviet Union and Poland. The Karaites’ fear for their lives during the war, and their salvation by the Szapszał’s a-historical theories strengthened their Turkic identity.

The Soviet Period and Perestroika

In the aftermath of World War II, the small Karaite communities were divided between the USSR and Poland. Some Galician, Volhynian, and Lithuanian Karaites resettled in Poland as Polish citizens in 1945–1946. Those who remained in Halych (which became a part of Soviet Ukraine) numbered a mere 40–50 people in the late 1940s – 1950s, and their synagogue was closed in 1960.

Szapszał’s theories also became accepted within official Soviet historical science, which tended to select narratives that detached the peoples of the USSR from their historical roots and cultural heritage. In its entry on the Karaites, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia explained that they were “descendants of ancient Turkic peoples that resided within the borders of the Khazar kingdom from the eighth to the tenth century.” Later, these words were frequently quoted as an authoritative source by the modern Karaite activists in the Soviet and especially in the post-Soviet period. When the peoples of the former USSR began developing national movements, the Karaites demonstrated their complete detachment from Judaism by declaring themselves a Turkic nation.

Today there are no Karaites in the Galicia region. Some of those living in Poland are the descendants of the Galician and Lithuanian Karaites. Polish Karaites started reviving their cultural life in the post-Soviet period, especially from the end of the 1980s. Two periodicals in Poland – Coś [Something] and Awazymyz [a new series of “Our Voice”] – were published in Polish and partly in the Karaite language. Polish, Lithuanian, and a major part of the Crimean Karaites put out numerous books and brochures, most of which reflect the ultimately Turkified agenda promoted by Szapszał, as well as its later, more radical modifications. According to Soviet statistics, some 5,700 Karaites existed in the USSR in 1956. Presently, Eastern European Karaites number about 1,500 people in the former USSR, and about 100 in Poland.

Select Bibliography

Akhiezer, Golda. “Abraham Leonowicz, a Galician Karaite Maskil: Between Austrian Rule and Ruthenian Nationalism.” In Revealers of Secrets: The Haskalah Movement in Galicia: History, Literature, Philosophy, and Memory, edited by Nathan Shifriss, Shmuel Feiner, and Chanan Gafni. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2022, 117–133 [in Hebrew].

Akhiezer, Golda. Historical Consciousness, Haskalah and Nationalism of Eastern European Karaites. Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2018.

Kizilov, Mikhail. The Karaites of Galicia: An Ethnoreligious Minority among the Ashkenazim, the Turks, and the Slavs, 1772–1945. Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2009.

Kizilov, Mikhail. “The Press and the Ethnic Identity: Turkicisation of Karaite Printing in Interwar Poland and Lithuania.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 60.4 (2007), 399–425.

Shapira, Dan. “A Jewish Pan-Turkist: Seraya Szapszał (Şapşaloğlu) and His Book Qırım Qaray Türkleri (1928).” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 58, no. 4 (2005), 349–80.